Reaction Design Concludes Model Fuels Consortium

San Diego, Calif. – November 6, 2012 – Reaction Design®, the leading developer of combustion simulation software, has successfully concluded its work leading the Model Fuels Consortium (MFC), an organization that has involved 20 automotive and energy industry luminaries engaged in the development of accurate fuel models for use in combustion simulation. The MFC was established in 2005 as the industry’s first collaborative research consortium made up of the world’s leading automotive and energy producers. It was formed in response to the growing pressures on engine and fuel manufacturers worldwide to improve both emissions and fuel efficiency. MFC charter members representing Chevron, Dow Chemical Company, Conoco-Phillips, Institute Français du Pétrol (now IFP Energies nouvelles), PSA Peugeot Citroen, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan and Toyota were later joined by representatives of Cummins Engine, Ford, General Electric Energy, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Petrobras, Saudi-Aramco, and Volkswagen, all of whom joined with Reaction Design engineers to develop, validate and apply fuel models and simulation methods that enable improvements to engine and fuel design, ultimately leading to cleaner-burning engines.

“As the cost of engine testing and fuel design continues to rise, it becomes increasingly important to use accurate fuel models in simulation,” said Bernie Rosenthal, CEO of Reaction Design. “The Model Fuels Consortium provided a forum for automotive and energy leaders to leverage the precompetitive nature of the consortium to develop software tools and well-validated fuel models more effectively than any single company could have done on its own.”

Throughout its seven-year tenure, the Consortium conducted two phases of research. At its launch, MFC members organized with the goal of establishing a practical methodology and the associated software and models needed to improve accuracy of engine simulations. The MFC pioneered the use of “surrogate modeling,” with which complex fuel chemistry could be represented by a reduced number of well-characterized molecular models and reactions selected to accurately simulate specific behaviors like ignition delay or pollutant-emission production. This addressed the fact that hundreds of molecules are involved in thousands of chemical reactions during the combustion process for large categories of fuels: carbon-based fuels such as diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, and natural gas; and alternative fuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel. Surrogate modeling necessitated the creation of a well-validated database of “Model Fuel” components as well as innovative new engineering analysis tools.

In 2008, Reaction Design announced the launch of the MFC-II in response to tightening emissions standards and research linking respiratory conditions to harmful microscopic soot particles. As such, the MFC-II was formed with a goal to create software models and tools that could allow engine designers to predict soot particle size and number. After nearly four years of intense research and development, MFC-II members can now use Reaction Design’s software tools such as ENERGICO and FORTÉ, and the updated MFC fuel models, to accurately simulate the formation, agglomeration and oxidation of soot particles, enabling designers to create cleaner-burning engines and better respond to anticipated changes in fuel compositions.

“The ability to predict soot particle sizes and reduce particulate emissions to meet regulations can save months of development time, cost and most importantly, help address growing global air quality concerns,” said Charlie Westbrook, senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and chief technical advisor to the MFC. “The MFC has provided a unique opportunity for fuel and auto leaders to closely collaborate with one another for a common goal: the continued development of tools and models to solve fuel efficiency and pollution challenges we all shared.”

AvailabilityENERGICO and FORTÉ with predictive soot modeling capability are available worldwide. Commercial companies that are interested in product information and evaluations can connect with Reaction Design at 1-408-550-1920, reactiondesign-info@ansys.com or visit www.reactiondesign.com.

Reaction Design is the exclusive developer and distributor of CHEMKIN and CHEMKIN-PRO, the de facto standard for modeling gas-phase and surface chemistry that provides engineers ultra-fast access to reliable answers that save time and money in the development process. Reaction Design’s FORTÉ is an advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation package for realistic 3D modeling of fuel effects in internal combustion engines with superior time-to-solution metrics that fit in commercial development timeframes. Reaction Design’s ENERGICO software brings accurate chemistry simulation to gas turbine and boiler/furnace combustion systems by applying automated reactor network analysis. Reaction Design also offers the CHEMKIN-CFD software module, which brings detailed kinetics modeling to other engineering applications, such as CFD packages.

Reaction Design’s world-class engineers, chemists and programmers have expertise that spans multi-scale engineering from the molecule to the production plant. Reaction Design serves more than 400 customers in the commercial, government and academic markets.

CHEMKIN®, CHEMKIN-PRO® and Reaction Design® are registered trademarks of Reaction Design. Reaction Workbench, FORTÉ, ENERGICO, CHEMKIN-CFD and Model Fuels Consortium are trademarks of Reaction Design. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.